May 30, 2006

Anatomy of a White House Smear, 3.3

by emptywheel

5/31: See the update below--apparently when DOJ first subpoenaed documents from the White House, that was an "informal" subpoena.

This is the third part of a multi-part narrative of the whole Plame Affair. Here are parts one and two. In this post, I cover the efforts BushCo made to slow the investigation--and possibly to cover-up the crime--in Fall 2003.

Delayed Realization and Playing Dumb: July to September 2003

I ended my leak week post with Novak's column. But that's a bit deceptive, because BushCo continued to push the Wilson smear even after Novak's column. On July 20, four days after presumably attending Gerald Ford's birthday party with her husband and Dick Cheney, Andrea Mitchell told Joe Wilson that "White House sources were telling her about the real story not being the sixteen words but Wilson and his wife." (Earlier that week Mitchell was was bitching because Richard Armitage wasn't returning her calls.) The next day Chris Matthews called and told Wilson that Rove had told him that Plame was "fair game." (Politics of Truth 350-1) After outing Plame, BushCo kept pushing the nepotism story, showing little concern, yet, for her covert status.

Nor did Novak seem concerned about his column. In David Corn's July 16 column about the leak, Novak was unapologetic.

Novak tells me that he was indeed tipped off by government
officials about Wilson's wife and had no reluctance about naming her. "I figured if they gave it to
me," he says. "They'd give it to others....I'm a reporter. Somebody
gives me information and it's accurate. I generally use it."

And in an article Phelps and Royce published on July 22, Novak was still unapologetic.

Novak, in an interview, said his sources had come to him
with the information. "I didn't dig it out, it was given to me," he
said. "They thought it was significant, they gave me the name and I used
it."

The date may be significant, though. We know from a Fitzgerald comment during the May 5 hearing
that, sometime shortly after Novak's column appeared, Libby and
one other official received a warning about the damage of outing a CIA
spy.

In
a different conversation that Mr. Libby was present for, a witness did
describe to Mr. Libby and another person the damage that can be caused
specifically by the outing of Ms. Wilson. It was before the grand jury.
It was back in July of 2003.

In addition, Wilson describes how after a July 22 appearance on the Today show, in which he noted that the leak may have violated the law, the media's inquiries regarding Plame abruptly stopped.

Although I received hundreds of phone calls from the national and international press in subsequent days, not once did I again hear a reporter cite White House sources in relation to that particular story. In the weeks ahead, the attacks from the White House reverted to more typical forms of character assassination. (Politics of Truth 351)

From that point forward, when asked about the leak,
BushCo issued blanket denials that a crime took place, ridiculing the idea.
Otherwise, they kept silent, hunkering down in the hopes that by ignoring the
issue, calls for an investigation wouldn't gather enough momentum to actually take
hold.

Behind the scenes, though, the CIA started the process of
asking for an investigation into the leak.

The Fix Is In: September 26 to October 8 2003

The following shaded table shows the events of the first two weeks of the investigation stage according to the legal status for the White House. These stages are:

After investigation announcement until Abu Gonzales directs the White House to retain materials (light orange)

Department of Justice (DOJ) officially launched the investigation on September 26. But it took four days to officially inform the White House, and another three to request evidence from the White House. That period exactly coincides with at least one known conversation between Karl Rove and Bob Novak--and some evidence that suggests they coordinated their stories. All of which suggests the White House used DOJ's slow start to establish a cover story for Rove.

It's unclear how the White House had planned to respond to the investigation. But on September 28, they were put on the defensive. The WaPo published an article--now commonly referred to as the "1X2X6 article"--reporting the DOJ investigation and quoting a Senior Administration Official (SAO) describing the smear in terms--intentional, malicious leaking--that would clearly violate the IIPA act.

[A] senior administration official said that before Novak's column ran, two
top White House officials called at least six Washington journalists
and disclosed the identity and occupation of Wilson's wife.

[snip]

"Clearly, it was meant purely and simply for revenge," the senior
official said of the alleged leak.

[snip]

It is rare for one Bush administration official to turn on
another. Asked about the motive for describing the leaks, the senior official
said the leaks were "wrong and a huge miscalculation, because they were
irrelevant and did nothing to diminish Wilson's
credibility."

This column, sourced as it was to someone within the Administration, seemed to offer proof that the Plame leak was malicious.

BushCo seems to have wasted no time in responding. The following morning, Clifford May wrote a column claiming he--and everyone in the beltway--knew of Plame's identity.

Who leaked the fact that the wife of Joseph C. Wilson IV worked for the CIA?

What also might be worth asking: "Who didn't know?"

[snip]

That wasn't news to me. I had been told that — but not by anyone
working in the White House. Rather, I learned it from someone who
formerly worked in the government and he mentioned it in an offhand
manner, leading me to infer it was something that insiders were well
aware of.

Now, May was interviewed by the FBI and apparently found not to have known
Plame's identity. In other words, May seems to have fibbed about his
knowledge of Plame. JimmyJeff GannonGuckert told the same fib later in the Fall. In other words, at least two hacks with clear ties to the Republican party started peddling a fib that conveniently cast doubt on Plame's covert status.

The White House, for its part, was standing by Rove. On September 29, Scotty McClellan strenuously denies that Rove was involved in the leak.

Q All right. Let me just follow up. You said this morning,
"The President knows" that Karl Rove wasn't involved. How does he know
that?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I've made it very clear that it was a
ridiculous suggestion in the first place. I saw some comments this
morning from the person who made that suggestion, backing away from
that. And I said it is simply not true. So, I mean, it's public
knowledge. I've said that it's not true. And I have spoken with Karl
Rove --

Q But how does --

MR. McCLELLAN: I'm not going to get into conversations that the
President has with advisors or staff or anything of that nature; that's
not my practice.

Q But the President has a factual basis for knowing that Karl
Rove --

MR. McCLELLAN: I said it publicly. I said that --

But Scotty dodges when asked about Libby.

Q Does he know whether or not the Vice President's Chief of
Staff, Lewis Libby --

MR. McCLELLAN: If you have any specific information to bring to my
attention -- like I said, there has been nothing that's been brought to
our attention. You asked me earlier if we were looking into it, there
is nothing that's been brought to our attention beyond the media
reports. But if someone did something like this, it needs to be looked
at by the Department of Justice, they're the appropriate agency charged
with looking into matters like this --

I'm most fascinated, though, by Scotty's insistence that the White House had not been officially notified of the investigation.

MR. McCLELLAN: Terry, all I can tell you is what I've seen in the
media reports. And I've seen different statements in the media reports
from, the CIA hasn't confirmed or denied that this was a covert agent
for the CIA; I've seen media reports to suggest that it was referred to
the Department of Justice, and that -- and comments the Department of
Justice would look into it.

Q So the President of the United States doesn't know whether or
not this classified information was divulged, and he is only getting
his information by reading the media?

MR. McCLELLAN: I'm sorry?

Q He does not know whether or not the classified information
was divulged here, and he's only getting his information from the
media?

MR. McCLELLAN: No, we don't know -- we don't have any information
that's been brought to our attention beyond what we've seen in the
media reports. I've made that clear.

By denying all knowledge, Scotty paints the White House as legally ignorant of anything to do with the investigation.

Meanwhile, on the same day Scotty claimed the White House was legally ignorant of the investigation, Bob Novak called Karl Rove to tell Rove he would protect him. Novak is reported to have reassured Rove that, "You are not going to
get burned" and "I don't give up my sources." Why would Novak say he would protect Rove, unless he believed Rove needed him to? Good question. Apparently, Rove willingly disclosed the phone call to the FBI.

Rove, according to attorneys involved in the case, volunteered the
information about the September 29 call during his initial interview
with FBI agents in the fall of 2003.

But it's unclear whether Rove was fully forthcoming about the conversation early in the investigation, whether Rove was able to adjust his testimony in response to reports on how the FBI received it, or whether his more detailed grand jury testimony about it has come more recently. Two more points. This Novak-Rove call is significant because it occurred at a time when the White House could be and was claiming to be legally ignorant of the case, when they might assume their behavior to be freer of legal restrictions. But it apparently wasn't just this one call. This call was one of "a series," involving other White House officials beyond Rove.

Also of interest to investigators have been a series of
telephone contacts between Novak and Rove, and other White House officials, in
the days just after press reports first disclosed the existence of a
federal criminal investigation as to who leaked Plame's identity. Investigators
have been concerned that Novak and his sources might have conceived or
co-ordinated a cover story to disguise the nature of their conversations.

Well, Novak seems to have been serious about his promise to protect Rove. On October 1, Novak publishes a column
that re-spins his initial column.

First, I did not receive a planned leak. Second, the CIA
never warned me that the disclosure of Wilson's
wife working at the agency would endanger her or anybody else. Third, it was
not much of a secret.

[snip]

During a long conversation with a senior administration
official, I asked why Wilson was assigned the
mission to Niger.
He said Wilson had been sent by the CIA's counterproliferation section at the suggestion of
one of its employees, his wife. It was an offhand revelation from this
official, who is no partisan gunslinger. When I called another official for
confirmation, he said: "Oh, you know about it." The published report
that somebody in the White House failed to plant this story with six reporters
and finally found me as a willing pawn is simply untrue.

How big a secret was it? It was well known around Washington that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA. Republican activist Clifford May wrote Monday,
in National Review Online, that he had been told of her identity by a
non-government source before my column appeared and that it was common
knowledge. Her name, Valerie Plame, was no secret either, appearing in
Wilson's "Who's Who in America" entry.

A big question is her duties at Langley. I regret that I referred to her in
my column as an "operative," a word I have lavished on hack
politicians for more than 40 years. While the CIA refuses to publicly define
her status, the official contact says she is "covered" -- working
under the guise of another agency. However, an unofficial source at the Agency
says she has been an analyst, not in covert operations.

Note some important features of this
story: they didn't call Novak, he called them, a complete reversal of
his explanations to Corn and Phelps and Royce in July. And Novak claims, like Judy, to have raised the issue of Wilson's op-ed. Novak alleges Rove responded with--remarkably--almost the same response Libby now
claims to have said to Cooper, "Oh, you know about it." Novak responds
explicitly to the 1X2X6 article, insisting he wasn't the last of 6
journalists who received the leak (which is itself a
mischaracterization of what the article said). And he uses the May
column from the previous day to support the case that Plame's identity
was well-known in DC; curiously, though he says Plame's identity was
"well known," uber-insider Bob Novak doesn't claim to have known it
himself. He uses similar parsing to back off his use of "operative." He
claims (erroneously, according to Josh Marshall) to frequently use the word to refer to political operatives, but doesn't say that's what he was doing at the time. And
he mentions two CIA sources--Harlow and someone else--noting the second
one "says she has been an analyst, not in covert operations," but he
doesn't provide a time frame for the "has been." Novak's source is not even claiming that Plame was an analyst, back on
July 14 when Novak publicized her name.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in DC around this time, when editor Phil Taubman asked Judy Miller whether she had been one of those six journalists, she provided a response that--remarkably--echoes Novak's claims.

In the fall of 2003, after The Washington Post reported that ''two
top White House officials disclosed Plame's identity to at least six
Washington journalists,'' Philip Taubman, Ms. Abramson's successor as
Washington bureau chief, asked Ms. Miller and other Times reporters
whether they were among the six. Ms. Miller denied it.

''The answer was generally no,'' Mr. Taubman said. Ms. Miller
said the subject of Mr. Wilson and his wife had come up in casual
conversation with government officials, Mr. Taubman said, but Ms.
Miller said ''she had not been at the receiving end of a concerted
effort, a deliberate organized effort to put out information.''

As Novak "did not receive a planned leak," Judy "had not been at
the receiving end of a concerted
effort, a deliberate organized effort to put out information." Does
anyone find it remarkable that these two deny they received a planned
leak just after it became clear DOJ was investigating a possible IIPA
violation, which punishes planned leaks of covert identities? Do all
these coincidences seem rather remarkable to you?

In any case, if Rove and Novak coordinated on a column to create a cover story, it appears to have worked.On the day Novak's column appears Scotty refers to it to pretend that Novak believed Plame was an analyst when he outed her.

MR. McCLELLAN: And the columnist made it clear he probably
shouldn't use that word, because his understanding was that she was,
indeed, an analyst. So those are the facts.

Novak, in seeming coordination with the White House, did one more thing--on October 3 on a television broadcast, he used the excuse of Wilson's political donations to reveal the name of Plame's cover firm, Brewster & Jennings. The following day, he repeated the revelation in his column. And the WaPo quoted two administration
officials confirming that Brewster & Jennings was Plame’s front company, using her W-2 information as evidence.

The leak of a CIA operative's name has also exposed the
identity of a CIA front company, potentially expanding the damage caused by the
original disclosure, Bush administration officials said yesterday.

[snip]

After the name of the company was broadcast yesterday,
administration officials confirmed that it was a CIA front. They said the
obscure and possibly defunct firm was listed as Plame's employer on her W-2 tax
forms in 1999 when she was working undercover for the CIA.

Two days later, on October 6, at least one syndicated version of his October 1 column appeared with Plame's name written as "Flame," one of the names that got leaked to Judy presumably back in June or July. The two confirmations of the role of Brewster & Jennings (including one that relied on Plame's personal tax or employment information), and the possible use of a covert name of Plame's, may have been an effort to ensure that Plame's cover was burned thoroughly. And again, this happened just as DOJ officially notified the White House what it needed to turn over.

Most of the attention--and Scotty's denials--up to this point were focused on Rove (not least because Wilson had uttered, then backed off of, his Karl Rove frog-march comment, as well as repeating Tweety's warning that Karl considered Plame "fair game"). In response to one of Scotty's vehement denials of Rove's involvement (probably the one from September 29 cited above), Libby petitioned specifically to have McClellan issue a clear denial on his behalf.

During
this time, while the President was unaware of the role that the Vice
President’s Chief of Staff and National Security Adviser had in fact
played in disclosing Ms. Wilson’s CIA employment, defendant implored
White House officials to have a public statement issued exonerating
him. When his initial efforts met with no success, defendant sought the
assistance of the Vice President in having his name cleared. Though
defendant knew that another White House official had spoken to Novak in
advance of Novak’s column and that official had learned in advance that
Novak would be publishing information about Wilson’s wife, defendant
did not disclose that fact to other White House officials (including
the Vice President) but instead prepared a handwritten statement of
what he wished White House Press Secretary McClellan would say to
exonerate him:

People have made too much of the difference inHow I described Karl and LibbyI’ve talked to Libby.I said it was ridiculous about KarlAnd it is ridiculous about Libby.Libby was not the source of the Novak story.And he did not leak classified information.

Note the parsing here--Libby adopts the technical "did not leak
classified information" and he denies leaking to Novak, but he never denies being the primary mover on
the smear campaign. Libby's sonnet here is curious not just because it is so pathetic. His need to lobby for such public support suggests either he was out of the loop on this part of the cover-up, or the White House expected OVP to take responsibility for this. That may have continued further; Libby appears to have turned over a great deal of very incriminating material. With Karl, on the other hand, the paper record in Fitzgerald's possession (at least as of the first indictment) didn't reflect events that occurred. Cooper mysteriously didn't get logged into Rove's phone log, and Rove's email to Hadley mysteriously disappeared for almost a year. I think it possible Karl's minions were busy tampering with evidence during this period ... but Libby may have been out of the loop on that tampering, or that tampering may have been designed to protect Karl.

Perhaps in response to Libby's search for public exoneration, starting on October 7 Scotty spent a few days repeating that technical denial--that they hadn't leaked classified information--for Libby, Rove, and Eliott Abrams.

Q Scott, you have said that you, personally, went to Scooter
Libby, Karl Rove and Elliot Abrams to ask them if they were the
leakers. Is that what happened? Why did you do that, and can you
describe the conversations you had with them? What was the question
you asked?

MR. McCLELLAN: Unfortunately, in Washington, D.C., at a time like
this, there are a lot of rumors and innuendo. There are
unsubstantiated accusations that are made. And that's exactly what
happened in the case of these three individuals. They're good
individuals, they're important members of our White House team, and
that's why I spoke with them, so that I could come back to you and say
that they were not involved. I had no doubt of that in the beginning,
but I like to check my information to make sure it's accurate before I
report back to you, and that's exactly what I did.

I mean this town is a -- is a town full of people who like to leak
information. And I don't know if we're going to find out the senior
administration official. Now, this is a large administration, and
there's a lot of senior officials. I don't have any idea. I'd like
to. I want to know the truth. That's why I've instructed this staff
of mine to cooperate fully with the investigators -- full disclosure,
everything we know the investigators will find out. I have no idea
whether we'll find out who the leaker is -- partially because, in all
due respect to your profession, you do a very good job of protecting
the leakers. But we'll find out.

Now let me review a few points. Fitzgerald seems to imply, with his comment about Libby's search for a public exoneration, that Bush did not yet know of Libby's role in the leak, and that Libby knew of Rove's role but didn't tell Bush or Cheney. Fitzgerald doesn't reveal whether he believes Bush to have known of Rove's involvement in this affair, though Murray Waas has reported that Rove denied his involvement to Bush. But look at Bush's statement here. It comes just over a week after Novak called Rove and told him he would protect him. And here Bush is, doubting the leaker would be found because journalists do a good job of protecting leakers. I'm sure they do.

Perhaps Bush had other reasons to doubt the leaker would be caught. As Scotty explained on October 7 (the White House's "self-imposed" deadline to submit potentially relevant evidence), before handing the evidence to the FBI, Abu Gonzales' office would review it for "relevance."

And what the Counsel's Office will do is look through this
information to make sure its responsive to the request from the
Department of Justice so that we can assist them in moving forward as
quickly as they possibly can to get to the bottom of this.

Funny how Scotty spins this potentially incriminating act as "helpful." But he goes further. He seems to claim that if an official has already deleted incriminating evidence--such as an email--he wouldn't have to turn it over.

Q No, I understand that. I'm just saying how would this work?
Let's say I remember -- I'm an official, I remember sending some email
about this, but I've long since deleted it. How --

MR. McCLELLAN: Understood. And that's why --

Q -- how do I get access to that --

MR. McCLELLAN: That's why I look at the request and employees are
expected to go back through all the information that they possess.
That's what's expected of the White House employees. There's other
requests of the White House and staff, as well.

Q So in other words, the Justice Department request would ask
the White House to provide materials --

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, look back at the specific request. I didn't
bring the actual memo out here from the Department of Justice.

Q I just want to be clear, though, the White House is obligated
to provide emails that may have been deleted by the individual but are
still archived by the White House --

MR. McCLELLAN: Look back -- it said what is in the possession of,
I believe, in the White House, the employees and staff. So I'll look
back at that. But we are doing everything to make sure we are
responsive to everything that the Justice Department requested, because
we want to get to the bottom of this, and we want to help those career
officials get to the bottom of this.

Forgive me for finding this stunning. A year before Karl "found" an email that might incriminate him, Scotty appears to have asserted that White House employees would not be responsible for identifying or turning over any evidence they had already (tried to) destroy, or evidence no longer at the White House.

*****Update*****

I'm moving the language from Abu Gonzales' October 3 memo detailing what they turn over into the body of the post:

For purposes of this memorandum, the term "documents"
includes "without limitation all electronic records, telephone records
of any kind (including but not limited to any documents that
memorialize telephone calls having been made), correspondence, computer
records, storage devices, notes, memoranda, and diary and calendar
entries" in
the possession of the Executive Office of the President, its staff, or
its employees, wherever located, including any documents that may have
been archived in Records Management. However, at this time, you do
not need to provide to Counsel's Office copies of the following,
provided that they have not been marked upon in any way and are not
accompanied by any notes or other commentary:
(a) press clips or articles, whether in hard copy or e-mail or
electronic form,

So DOJ gave EOP some wiggle room on the issue of "possession," though nowhere near as much as Scotty seems to have implied.

But here's another curious detail. In 2004, when Fitzgerald took over the case, they re-subpoenaed the same information--disinguishing this second document request from the earlier "informal" one.

The third subpoena
repeats an informal Justice Department document request to the White
House last fall seeking records about staff contacts with Novak and two
Newsday reporters, Knut Royce and Timothy Phelps, who reported on July
22 that Plame was a covert agent and Novak had blown her cover.

[snip]

The subpoena with
the [February 6] production date repeated the Justice Department's informal
request to the White House last fall for documents from Feb. 1, 2002,
through 2003 related to Wilson's February 2002 trip to Niger, to Plame
and to contacts with journalists. [my emphasis]

Though when they subpoena the documents this second, "this time we mean it" time, Abu Gonzales includes the instruction that turning them over was "mandatory."

All three subpoenas
were sent to employees of the Executive Office of the President under a
Jan. 26 memo by White House counsel Alberto Gonzalez saying production
of the documents, which include phone messages, e-mails and handwritten
notes, was "mandatory" and setting a Jan. 29 deadline.

Does that suggest the October document dump wasn't mandatory? Just a suggestion, if you feel like it? If I'm reading this right, the first deadline--the one John Ashcroft gave the White House a 4 day + 11 hour heads up to--wasn't even "formal." Presumably, Rove could have not turned over records of contacts with Novak if he didn't feel like it. Nice justice system he's got there.

***End Update***

Refuse to Recuse: October to December 2003

All of which explains why the press, Democrats, and some career DOJ employees were suspicious with the DOJ's handling of the case. The reporting structure for the investigation appears to have been:

John Ashcroft, Attorney General

Robert McCallum, Associate Attorney General and acting Deputy Attorney General

Christopher Wray, Assistant Attorney General, Criminal Division

John Dion, Chief of Counter-Espionage, FBI

Karl Rove worked for John Ashcroft in three different elections. And Robert McCallum is a friend of Bush's from their Yale Skull and Bones days. Fitzgerald has expressed confidence in both Dion and Wray (particularly Dion), although Wray testified to briefing Ashcroft on all aspects of the investigation, including on the FBI interviews with and beliefs about Rove. James Comey was nominated to be Deputy Attorney General on October 3 and officially took the position on December 11. Until Comey came along, though, the entire reporting structure appears to have been incredibly pre-disposed to the White House.

Terry, there is a process in place that was followed. The CIA has
a process to look at classified information if it is leaked, and they
followed a process and that process has moved forward. And the
Department of Justice is looking into it. I don't know the specific
time period, but the process was followed, and the President expects
the process to be followed, and that process was followed, and that
what the President expects, because leaking classified information is a
very serious matter.

The next day he offers solace that "career justice department officials" were conducting the investigation.

Q Third, Karl Rove used to work for Attorney General Ashcroft.
Attorney General Ashcroft is investigating the White House, why doesn't
that represent a conflict of interest?

MR. McCLELLAN: Career Justice Department officials are
investigating the allegation that there is a leak of classified
information.

But that didn't stop Democrats from calling for a Special Prosecutor, particularly as the many delays Abu Gonzales inserted into the process became clear:

4 days to officially inform about investigation

11 hours to inform to keep materials

7 days to turn over materials

2 weeks before turning materials over to DOJ

Most stunning, however, was the response Abu Gonzales gave to a demand by Democrats for specific assurances that WH staff would cooperate. Abu Gonzales replied,

We believe it is inconsistent with the
constitution's separation-of-powers principles for members of Congress
to direct the president's management of White House employees, as it
would be for the president to suggest specific ways in which senators
should handle their own staffs

Apparently, the unitary executive can facilitate law breaking on the part of his employees, at least according to then White House Counsel and current Attorney General Gonzales. You think Abu G wrote that decision on his own, or did he have help from the separation of powers hawks, Scooter Libby and David Addington?

Finally, though, after two months of complaints from DOJ professionals and more specific allegations before Comey was able to convince Ashcroft to recuse himself. The more specific allegations?

Suspicious that Rove and Novak might have devised a cover story during
that conversation to protect Rove, federal investigators briefed
then-Attorney General John Ashcroft
on the matter in the early stages of the investigation in fall 2003,
according to officials with direct knowledge of those briefings.

Ashcroft not only received briefings of all details of the investigation, but he received a briefing about the suspicious call between Novak and Rove during the period when DOJ was slow-walking the investigation.

The DOJ not only facilitated Novak's and Rove's apparent coordination of their stories by slow-walking the early parts of the investigation. But it may have provided Rove with a feedback mechanism to understand how well that coordination was working.

On December 30, James Comey convinced Ashcroft that was unacceptable and Comey named Patrick Fitzgerald as Special Prosecutor. It's unclear whether Ashcroft shared the contents of those briefings with Rove. But if Rove did attempt a cover-up, pulling it off got a lot harder starting in January 2004.

Comments

For purposes of this memorandum, the term "documents" includes "without limitation all electronic records, telephone records of any kind (including but not limited to any documents that memorialize telephone calls having been made), correspondence, computer records,
storage devices, notes, memoranda, and diary and calendar entries" in the possession of the Executive Office of the President, its staff, or its employees, wherever located, including any documents that may have been archived in Records Management. However, at this time, you do not need to provide to Counsel's Office copies of the following, provided that they have not been marked upon in any way and are not accompanied by any notes or other commentary:
(a) press clips or articles, whether in hard copy or e-mail or electronic form,

I have a feeling Rove's minions knew the terms of "possession" before this memo went out (which, btw, included another day-long delay between the time DOJ informed Abu G and he informed the White House). So if you were Karl Rove and wanted to archive emails somewhere not in your possession, where would you put them?

I wonder whether the CIA briefing to Libby of the consequences of exposing Plame's identity was a consequence of Novak's trip down to the CIA where he was told in no uncertain terms that he should not use her name and Novak gave Rove a call back and a heads up. It would have made for an interesting call if the timing meshed.

Many thanks, EW, for the whole three part series (and maybe more?). It's a chance for all of us to re-read and ponder what we know so far. And the links to the original articles are so helpful -- makes me realize what a valuable tool the internet can be in terms of reporting. We take it for granted -- but how did we ever manage before?
Again, thanks for your outstanding effort.

EW: With this series you've reached a new level of narrative craftmanship! You've always been able to churn out brilliant deductions and theories, but this one has a real "page-turner" feel to it. You really need to combine this, the Judy Chronicles, and various other gems into a book timed to be released when everything finally comes to a head.

margaret, EW originally thought that "purely and simply for revenge" was from Grossman, & Jason Leopold has reported that it was Grossman - but it appears that there has been a possible change of heart lately here at TNH that maybe it was Armitage.

Wow, EW, that was most excellent and your links provided me with further insight as there were articles that I had either not seen before or simply didn't remember the specifics in context.

I wish more people could read this because it truly causes a "D'oh!" moment. However, with the grace of the internet it already gets a chance to be seen by more eyes than mainstream media would ever afford it.

Tonight I heard Murray Waas interviewed by Sam Sedar on "The Majority Report". Wass was suggesting that in the next couple of weeks we will definately be hearing more about the 3 months that Attorney General John Ashcroft stayed on the investigation before recusing himself. Sedar said he was going to try to get more info out of Waas on that subject but then ran out of time and didn't. Any ideas as to why we will be hearing more about this conflict of interest and time delays in the "next few weeks"? Just curious if anyone has some ideas...

One of the striking things has to do with Novak's claims, in the immediate aftermath of his column, about being given her name. I've always sort of wondered whether the CIA might not have given him her name, before asking him not to use it, or something like that. But of course it's easy to check, if you're Fitzgerald, simply by asking Harlow, and Fitzgerald undoubtedly knows the answer. There's also Novak's off-the-books CIA source(s), as well as, I suspect, Tenet himself. But the point is, presumably all of this can be, and has been, chased down. Something doesn't fit, since Rove seems to have claimed he didn't know her name before hearing from Novak, and the State Department folks have made a big deal out of the fact taht "Plame" is not in the INR memo. And frankly, with all my suspicion of Armitage, I just don't see him fitting the description Novak gives of his source on Plame's name. It's a puzzle.

Novak's October 1 column really looks pretty amazing, doesn't it?

Here's a question (for polly?): I haven't been able to figure out what Libby is referring to when he writes, in his sonnet for McClellan, that people have made too much of the difference in how Scott descibed Karl and Scooter. What people? Where? I haven't been able to find anything in print, and the only thing on TV I've been able to find are some appearances of Larry Johnson. Though I haven't seen actual transcripts, it's easy to imagine him making a lot of that difference, but it's hard to imagine Scooter thinking that merited a response from the White House spokesperson. So what's he talking about? Just DC chatter, or what?

As for what Bush knew, it's worth noting there was a pretty obvious, though odd, rebuttal to that Waas piece in the NYDN not that long after.

Finally, whatever Rove learned then from Ashcroft, you can bet he knows all about it now, thanks to his own spokesperson, Mark Corallo, who was Ashcroft's in the fall of 2003.

Thanks, Swopa, for the links regarding my question, earlier. After reading them, and after my own recollection, my gut feeling, too, is that Powell made the comment about the leaks being "for revenge."

What a sorry business this all is. How sad for the Republic we have such disgusting people working in the White House.

Waas was suggesting that in the next couple of weeks we will definitely be hearing more about the 3 months that Attorney General John Ashcroft stayed on the investigation before recusing himself.

I don't know if this is what Waas means, but it's always struck me that even though his sources have implied Ashcroft was forced to step back due to Rove's involvement in the case, the DOJ investigators also had Libby's notes implicating Cheney (which seem like an even more obvious red flag that a special prosecutor was required).

Fitzgerald found emails from July 2003 and September-October 2003, the ones that had been moved out of the WH possession to hide this conspiracy. And those emails provide evidence of these attempts to cover-up. It is probably not an accident that Scotty (who apparently issued denials to cover up the crime) and Andy Card (who was responsible for the 11-hour stall--though not the more important 4-day stall) just got ousted from the WH. Those two could corroborate whatever is in emails. And they probably could make the rest of a case against Novak and Rove. And, quite possibly, Ashcroft and Abu Gonzales. I suspect there may be proof that Ashcroft did close the feedback loop to Rove, to help him fine tune his story.

In other words, to prove his perjury case against Rove, Fitzgerald may be forced to prove the larger conspiracy. And that might even mean we get to see Novak go to jail!!

Jeff

Thanks for the reminder to the NYDN.

I think Libby was just pissed that Scotty didn't respond at all to questions about Libby. Libby almost always scolded journalists for mentioning him AT ALL, even for minor things. And we know he chewed Russert's ear off for Tweety's comments in July. So I suspect this is more of the same, but directed internally. I'm just amazed that it seems like EOP resisted issuing more of a denial for a while.

And yes, I didn't list the about 5 important lower-level conflicts of interest, Corallo and Comstock (as I think you were one of the first to point out). It was basically Rove's team investigating him.

There was a turning point for Scott's strategies, somewhere in the week there was a renewed request for an investigation by a congress person sending a legation of people to the White House bearing a few cartons containing (?several hundred thousand) signatures on a petition. Beyond that event, Scott took the 'no comment on an ongoing investigation' tack.
Questions for Larry J and Murray W: simply ask them Friday of next week, if you all are there at the discussion. I got to take care of the ranch then. Give me an email if you are in the area. I hope Markos puts most of the formal material online. It looks like EW has an excellent first draft here now.
There is a lot yet to appear. As Jane observed, what happens if a certain fab reporter ends up with a bee in her bonnet in early 2007. Does Comey do a sworn deposition this summer to help open the door to the events around the Ashcroft recusal. There is a lot of hyperbole out there, though I am glad Rep. Conyers was involved so vociferously at the important juncture at which Ashcroft bowed out; as ew has observed, a lot of exposure occurred when that surprise recusal removed some but not all of the camouflage; and the found emails likely helped Fitzgerald prioritize discovery with a neat cache of information based upon which to construct some interesting interrogatories.
While Gonzales sensibilities of what is proper government are themes throughout many of this administration's policies, and even given Gonzales' historic critique of Priscilla Owen's ruling in one TX case long ago, I expect Gonzales is relying on some other very bright people to blend theory and do the due diligence, to wax onomatopoeic here alliteratively. I doubt Sensenbrenner's maybe scheduled hearings with Gonzales in attendance are likely to elicit much, but it would be nice to see what Gonzales thinks about the theories when forced to defend them in direct aggressive questioning; I appreciate that most of the legal matters about those hearings are in negotiations, though overlain with hype in the press and in the hustings speechmaking. Maybe they will schedule it for the same schedule as the AkosEvent hoping for less notoriety.

I'm just amazed that it seems like EOP resisted issuing more of a denial for a while.

I agree. At various points - in Wilson's book (though it's always hard to know how reliable his sources are on this stuff), and perhaps especially in the run-up to the end of the first grand jury's term, probably as a hedging strategy just in case Cheney was either indicted or named some kind of unindicted co-conspirator - there have been reports of the tension between EOP and OVP over the Plame stuff, and the botched prewar wmd argument, with the President (obviously being protected) pissed at Cheney for what had happened and its consequences. But we've gotten very very little on this, so it was really rather remarkable to see Fitzgerald exhibit a clear instance of it. I presume there is some combination of the following two explanations for why the White House was hanging Libby out to dry, even a little. First, it was to a considerable extent true to the facts: OVP was the center of gravity in the concerted attacks on Wilson and the CIA. But this raises the question of who at the White House resisted Libby's efforts to clear him, and whether they actually knew about his and OVP's role, given that Fitzgerald tells us that Bush did not know of Libby's role in disclosing Plame's CIA employment. (Presumably, that is based principally on Bush's testimony, which is intriguing; I wonder what other evidence there is.) Second, just as 1x2x6 focused attention on the White House, perhaps in a deliberate effort to draw attention away from the State Department, so McLellan's statement was presumably designed to draw attention away from the EOP and toward OVP, for whatever problems there were going to be. I should also throw it that it's quite amazing that the basis of McLellan's claim about Rove was probably the piece of casuistry that Rove was not involved in the leak because he talked to Novak about Plame but wasn't - or didn't know - or claimed he didn't know that he was a source for Novak.

Actually, "Kim====" isn't so much a "troll" as a member of the Loyal Opposition over at Maguire's joint, with the off-the-wall uranium comment being ... errr ... just one minute example of the well-intentioned but often ludicrous reasoning that goes on over there.

I think the instaDeclassification-reclassifiedNow policy may have been a Bush Rove carte blanche policy enunciated to Cheney; whereby the vice president could have told his key person very early they could select the 4Ws of what to leak, who, what, why, when, where. I think Jeff's comment in that regard resembles some of ew's early constructs about that dynamic. Libby may have taken DickC at his word, alright if you have a plan (worked out with Karl's broad knowledge) leak it now to Judy, or whomever was first. Thing was, Libby was exposed by personnel changes. Nearly every president wants a second term, but the alibis likely get very byzantine by the seventh year. Reminds me of the way Bush-1 compartmentalized communications to insulate Reagan from 'knowing'; except Georgie Bush-2 is more of a decider, which makes some compartmentalization a little more elaborate.

It matters, slightly, whether Rove gets feedback on his own testimony from one of his friendly friends at DOJ. But it matters a lot more to get feedback on Novak's testimony. Let's pretend they interviewed Novak first. In fact, let's pretend Rove encouraged him to talk, look all cooperative and everything. Rove would know, via his DOJ grapevine, what Novak had testified to, including what he had said about their collaborative conversations. So Rove could feel confident saying, "well, gosh, that was a funny conversation," because he knew Novak hadn't said anything. Imagine, too, if Rove had learned what Ari and Scotty and Card and Libby had testified to.

He would know exactly what he could say, to match up to what others had said. And magically, that's what happened, until Matt Cooper came along and (as Byron York said), "burned Rove."

To some degree it doesn't matter--Rove probably got interviewed twice, just like Libby. Plus, if Rove encouraged Novak "to go forward," then the DOJ guidelines wouldn't come into play (as they didn't with Woodward).

With Cooper I think it's more important to know how Time was handling the first subpoena. Cooper's lawyer was quite adamant about not approaching Libby first. If Rove knew that, then Rove knew Cooper wouldn't testify in August 2004. He might have thought he had gotten away with it.

After all these months of reading and reading, it is finally starting to really make sense...you are all too quick and brilliant for me. Thank you so much, ew, for your tireless efforts! I'm almost ready to take the exam...

Fascinating NYT article about the intervention of our friend Mark Corallo in a case involving the subpoena of reporters, objecting to Gonzales' willingness to subpoena reporters and contrasting his own attitude as Ashcroft's guy at Justice back in the day. The key takeaway:

Mr. Corallo said he had used a different standard, one rooted in Justice Department policy.

"It has to be a matter of grave national security or impending physical harm to innocent people," he said, "not just, well, this is the only way we're going to be able to get this information."

Tom Maguire very aptly nails the significance for us:

Someone ought to ask him whether he thinks the Valerie Plame case counts as a matter of "grave" national security - there are certainly plenty of reasons to think it does not. (An obvious "Someone" would be Jeralyn Merritt, who has Mr. Corallo's contact info).

And if it does not, then might Rove and Libby have presumed that Ashcroft would not be issuing subpoenas to reporters? One might wonder if they were calculating that, absent reporter's testimony, the case would just drift away.

Now, there is an obvious circularity to this argument - *IF* the national security implications were not significant, then why bother with a cover-up at all? Well, the avoidance of political embarrassment would be the obvious motive.

Troubling.

Of course, you don't need to take a position on whether in fact the Plame leak was a matter of grave national security to appreciate Tom's point. All you need to ask - and the question almost answers itself - is whether the Republicans in the Justice Department at the time considered this a matter of grave national security, and whether Rove and Libby would have had a sense of where they stood on this. Troubling indeed.

One more thing about the Corallo article--he's dead wrong. As I keep repeating, Ashcroft's DOJ secretly subpoenaed the phone records for John Solomon (he of the shitty Reid story fame) in a political scandal story. I think it was in the Comstock era (that is, before Corallo). But still, there's no way of arguing that the Torricelli case related to national security. Therefore, there's no way of arguing that the Aschroft DOJ didn't subpoena journalists.

Btw, I'm heading to the woods in a few hours, until Sunday night. Probably no posting on Monday. On Tuesday I'm going to try to finish the "Anatomy" series, to get it done before YearlyKos. And then Thursday I'm off for that. So I'll be posting not at all (the next 3 days) or lightly (between then and June 12) for a while. But I hope to meet some of you in Las Vegas.

Fortunately, the ToraBoraBuster test scheduled for today, was stopped in the courts by the Winnemucca tribe and others, though the mushroom cloud would have dissipated by the time the conference opened four days later and 85 miles away. Difficult to believe the energy department would test it on radioactive soil. Barry Goldwater would have enjoyed the show. Amazingly some of the principals involved now have names like Lloyd George, the judge, and Darwin, one of the litigants. I was glad to see the panel at Akos is wider; MurrayW is a perfect selection. Our place is like Muir woods but nicer, and 900 miles from Las Vegas as the ungainly condor flies, reportedly.

In the spirit of copnstructive criticism I am going to pull out the red pen, set the snark-o-meter to minimum (which is not, regretably, zero), and make a few points:

1. Sept 26, "NBC leaks news of investigation". Yes, that was an Andrea Mitchell report, presumably not based on White Houise sources ("NBC News has learned" is pretty vague.) She was following this story all along, and I will come back to her shortly.

2. The 1x2x6 leak - care to bring us up to speed on how well that held up, who the likely leaker was, and what their motive might have been? I would say "Not well", "Grossman", and "Push attention away from Novak's primary source, Armitage".

3.

May was interviewed by the FBI and apparently found not to have known Plame's identity. In other words, May seems to have fibbed about his knowledge of Plame. JimmyJeff GannonGuckert told the same fib later in the Fall. In other words, at least two hacks with clear ties to the Republican party started peddling a fib that conveniently cast doubt on Plame's covert status.

Perhaps Polly can correct me on this, but I'll bet ,a href="http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2005/02/know_why_did_th.html">a cup of coffee that Guckert was investigated because he gave the appearance of having received the INR memo. The reality seems to have been that he read the Wall Street Journal, but who knows? In any case, I don't think anyone found him claiming to have known about Ms. Plame prior to her outing, which is the point being offered here.

4. "I'm most fascinated, though, by Scotty's insistence that the White House had not been officially notified of the investigation."

On Oct 1, McClellan said that Gonzalez was officialy notified 8:30 PM on the 29th, so as of the press appearance on the 29th, he was officially in the dark.

Gonzalez did not notify the staff until Tuesday AM, so Schumer and others screamed about the twelve hour cover-up.

Of course, given his vast DoJ contacts, Rove had to have known for months that this referral was kicking around. It was even reported in the press in July.

5. Note some important features of this story: they didn't call Novak, he called them, a complete reversal of his explanations to Corn and Phelps and Royce in July."

His July story was that they gave him the info, not that they called him. I suppose it hinges on "come to him" in this:

"Novak, in an interview, said his sources had *come to him* with the information. "I didn't dig it out, it was given to me," he said. "They thought it was significant, they gave me the name and I used it."

Do you really think Armitage called Novak to leak about Plame? I don't.

6. As Novak "did not receive a planned leak," Judy "had not been at the receiving end of a concerted effort, a deliberate organized effort to put out information." Does anyone find it remarkable that these two deny they received a planned leak just after it became clear DOJ was investigating a possible IIPA violation, which punishes planned leaks of covert identities? Do all these coincidences seem rather remarkable to you?

Well, following the WaPo 1x2x6, it was not a coincidence that they were being asked.

7. Novak, in seeming coordination with the White House, did one more thing--on October 3 on a television broadcast, he used the excuse of Wilson's political donations to reveal the name of Plame's cover firm, Brewster & Jennings. The following day, he repeated the revelation in his column. And the WaPo quoted two administration officials confirming that Brewster & Jennings was Plame’s front company, using her W-2 information as evidence.

Seeming, how? Pincus does not cite any White House officials in his story. An alternative view - Novak mentioned Brewster-Jennings on air, and reporters (well, Pincus) called their intel contacts to see what was up. What is the evideence of a White House connection?

In my world, this could just as well buttress the story Novak peddled about his intial motive for writing about Joe as a political partisan (following his "Enemy Within" theme about Townsend). - he may well have done all this research prior to the July 14 column, and decided to sit on it.

8. Note the parsing here--Libby adopts the technical "did not leak classified information" and he denies leaking to Novak, but he never denies being the primary mover on the smear campaign.

Let's recap - Armitage leaks to Woodward, then Novak.

Libby leaks to Judy Miller, who never publishes.

Novak calls Rove, runs story past him.

Cooper calls Rove, gets a leak.

Cooper calls Libby, runs story past him.

Someone (Fleischer?) calls Pincus. Fleischer learned about Plame from either Libby or Air Force One / INR memo.

As a "primary mover", Libby is pretty successful with a passive-aggressive approach. Thank heaven Armitage picked up his slack.

8. Forgive me for finding this stunning. A year before Karl "found" an email that might incriminate him, Scotty appears to have asserted that White House employees would not be responsible for identifying or turning over any evidence they had already (tried to) destroy, or evidence no longer at the White House.

Huh? Is it your theory that Rove had reviewed his cover-up strategy with McClellan? Why would he do that?

Another view - McClellan was giving an obvious answer to a silly question - yes, the WH has an archival system, yes the SysOps folks will retrieve stuff even if the busy officials have deleted it from their personal computers. No kidding.

9. If you are going to mention "operative" and Andrea Mitchell, you should at least acknowledge that she used that precise word on July 8, well before the controversial Novak usage on July 14. We have ,a href="http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2006/05/reading_novak.html#comment-17525521hashed that over, as you know.